Forty Steps and Other Stories

Forty Steps and Other Stories
Author: Terrence Murphy
Publisher: iUniverse
Total Pages: 151
Release: 2018-07-28
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1532053029

This collection of sixteen short stories is set in Egg Rock, a fictional town north of Boston. They are written in approximate chronological order spanning hundreds of years and are linked not only by the setting but by the reappearance of characters, their ancestors, and descendants. Many are loosely based on local North Shore legends and historical events. Ragnhild is an adviser to Thorvald Eiriksson, son of Erik the Red and brother of Leif, on his voyages to Vinland. He describes their discovery of an idyllic almost island during Thorvalds last days. Ezra Newhall is a jack-of-all-trades who works at Egg Rocks sprawling, jerry-built hotel, called The Castle. On the eve of the Civil War the Castle owners son returns home with a secret that is about to be revealed. Priscilla, a writer seeking peace and quiet in a secluded Egg Rock cottage during World War II, gets swept up by the war in a way she could never anticipate. Mayland, a TV weatherman, and his wife barely survive a devastating fire, the work of an arsonist with a hundred-year grudge. In Forty Steps and Other Stories the reader discovers a unique place that leaves its imprint, for better or for worse, on all who call it home.

Four Hundred and Forty Steps to the Sea

Four Hundred and Forty Steps to the Sea
Author: Sara Alexander
Publisher: Kensington Books
Total Pages: 445
Release: 2018-08-28
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1496715497

“Family secrets and a transportive Italian setting keep the reader thoroughly immersed, making for a satisfying story of one woman’s coming-of-age.” —Publishers Weekly Nestled into the cliffs in southern Italy’s Amalfi coast, Positano is an artist’s vision, with rows of brightly hued houses perched above the sea and picturesque staircases meandering up and down the hillside. Santina, still a striking woman despite old age and the illness that saps her last strength, is spending her final days at her home, Villa San Vito. The magnificent eighteenth-century palazzo is very different from the tiny house in which she grew up. And as she decides its fate, she must confront the choices that led her here so long ago . . . In 1949, Positano is as yet undiscovered by tourists, a beautiful, secluded village shaking off the dust of war. Hoping to escape poverty, young Santina takes domestic work in London, ultimately becoming a housekeeper to a distinguished British major and his creative, impulsive wife, Adeline. When they move to Positano, Santina returns with them, raising their daughter as Adeline’s mental health declines. With each passing year, Santina becomes more deeply enmeshed within the family, trying to navigate her complicated feelings for a man who is much more than an employer—while hiding secrets that could shatter the only home she knows . . . “Pick up this book to be swept away like a frothy Mediterranean wave, with its melodic writing style that’s richly filled with beautiful imagery in a setting so sunny and beautiful you will be transported!” —Beachcombing Magazine

Sum

Sum
Author: David Eagleman
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 128
Release: 2009-02-10
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0307378020

At once funny, wistful and unsettling, Sum is a dazzling exploration of unexpected afterlives—each presented as a vignette that offers a stunning lens through which to see ourselves in the here and now. In one afterlife, you may find that God is the size of a microbe and unaware of your existence. In another version, you work as a background character in other people’s dreams. Or you may find that God is a married couple, or that the universe is running backward, or that you are forced to live out your afterlife with annoying versions of who you could have been. With a probing imagination and deep understanding of the human condition, acclaimed neuroscientist David Eagleman offers wonderfully imagined tales that shine a brilliant light on the here and now.

Tell Me How It Ends

Tell Me How It Ends
Author: Valeria Luiselli
Publisher: Coffee House Press
Total Pages: 71
Release: 2017-03-13
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 1566894964

"Part treatise, part memoir, part call to action, Tell Me How It Ends inspires not through a stiff stance of authority, but with the curiosity and humility Luiselli has long since established." —Annalia Luna, Brazos Bookstore "Valeria Luiselli's extended essay on her volunteer work translating for child immigrants confronts with compassion and honesty the problem of the North American refugee crisis. It's a rare thing: a book everyone should read." —Stephen Sparks, Point Reyes Books "Tell Me How It Ends evokes empathy as it educates. It is a vital contribution to the body of post-Trump work being published in early 2017." —Katharine Solheim, Unabridged Books "While this essay is brilliant for exactly what it depicts, it helps open larger questions, which we're ever more on the precipice of now, of where all of this will go, how all of this might end. Is this a story, or is this beyond a story? Valeria Luiselli is one of those brave and eloquent enough to help us see." —Rick Simonson, Elliott Bay Book Company "Appealing to the language of the United States' fraught immigration policy, Luiselli exposes the cracks in this foundation. Herself an immigrant, she highlights the human cost of its brokenness, as well as the hope that it (rather than walls) might be rebuilt." —Brad Johnson, Diesel Bookstore "The bureaucratic labyrinth of immigration, the dangers of searching for a better life, all of this and more is contained in this brief and profound work. Tell Me How It Ends is not just relevant, it's essential." —Mark Haber, Brazos Bookstore "Humane yet often horrifying, Tell Me How It Ends offers a compelling, intimate look at a continuing crisis—and its ongoing cost in an age of increasing urgency." —Jeremy Garber, Powell's Books

Confessions of a Forty-Something

Confessions of a Forty-Something
Author: Alexandra Potter
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Total Pages: 346
Release: 2023-04-28
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 103503137X

Now a major TV series. Read the hilarious rom-com that inspired the hit sitcom Not Dead Yet starring Gina Rogriguez. As recommended on Davina McCall's Making the Cut podcast, and perfect for fans of Dolly Alderton, Ruth Jones and Marian Keyes. 'The new Bridget Jones' – Celia Walden, Telegraph 'Funny but layered . . . this is a perfect and inspiring new year read' – Red A novel for any woman who wonders how the hell she got here, and why life isn't quite how she imagined it was going to be. And who is desperately trying to figure it all out when everyone around them is making gluten-free brownies. Meet Nell. Her life is a mess. In a world of perfect Instagram lives, she feels like a disaster. But when she starts a secret podcast and forms an unlikely friendship with Cricket, an eighty-something widow, things begin to change. Because Nell is determined. This time next year things will be very different. But first, she has a confession . . . Confessions of a Forty-Something by Alexandra Potter will make you laugh, and it might even make you cry. Above all, it will remind you that you're not on your own – we're all in this together. 'Brilliant! Laughing out loud' – Emma Gannon, podcaster (Ctrl Alt Delete) and author of Olive 'Say hello to a book that will have you laughing with every page, whether you're 20, 40 or 80' – Heat

Four Thousand Weeks

Four Thousand Weeks
Author: Oliver Burkeman
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Total Pages: 140
Release: 2021-08-10
Genre: Self-Help
ISBN: 0374715246

AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "Provocative and appealing . . . well worth your extremely limited time." —Barbara Spindel, The Wall Street Journal The average human lifespan is absurdly, insultingly brief. Assuming you live to be eighty, you have just over four thousand weeks. Nobody needs telling there isn’t enough time. We’re obsessed with our lengthening to-do lists, our overfilled inboxes, work-life balance, and the ceaseless battle against distraction; and we’re deluged with advice on becoming more productive and efficient, and “life hacks” to optimize our days. But such techniques often end up making things worse. The sense of anxious hurry grows more intense, and still the most meaningful parts of life seem to lie just beyond the horizon. Still, we rarely make the connection between our daily struggles with time and the ultimate time management problem: the challenge of how best to use our four thousand weeks. Drawing on the insights of both ancient and contemporary philosophers, psychologists, and spiritual teachers, Oliver Burkeman delivers an entertaining, humorous, practical, and ultimately profound guide to time and time management. Rejecting the futile modern fixation on “getting everything done,” Four Thousand Weeks introduces readers to tools for constructing a meaningful life by embracing finitude, showing how many of the unhelpful ways we’ve come to think about time aren’t inescapable, unchanging truths, but choices we’ve made as individuals and as a society—and that we could do things differently.

Forty Steps Closer to God

Forty Steps Closer to God
Author: Bushra Bajwa
Publisher:
Total Pages: 144
Release: 2019-02-07
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 9781796222111

Read about the wise ways of Prophet Muhammad (May peace and blessings of Allah be upon him). "Forty Steps Closer to God" is a must-read for all Muslim teenagers. It contains a careful selection of forty hadith that present the mode of life of the Holy Prophet (May peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) who God chose to be the perfect example for humankind. The selected forty hadith were chosen to provide both examples of Prophet Muhammad's (May peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) relationship with God as well as his relationship with his fellow beings. Adopting the habits demonstrated in these forty hadith would not only bring one closer to God but would also lead to more peaceful societies.Written for high-school and college-aged students, covering a variety of interesting and essential topics, with clear and concise explanations on each hadith, and study questions to further the reader's knowledge, this pocket guide would be ideal for a book club or religious study group.

The Pacific and Other Stories

The Pacific and Other Stories
Author: Mark Helprin
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 385
Release: 2005-06-28
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1101644338

A dazzling collection of short stories by Mark Helprin, bestselling author of Winter's Tale, which is now a major motion picture starring Colin Farrell, Jessica Brown Findlay, Russell Crowe, William Hurt, and Jennifer Connelly The Pacific and Other Stories is a collection of sixteen stories that display the remarkable scope, incomparable wit, and deft prose that have come to be Mark Helprin's signature. A British paratrooper jumps into occupied territory; the 1958 New York Yankees gain an unexpected teammate in a puny, teenaged Hasidic Jew; a September 11th widow receives an astonishing gift from the contractor working on her new apartment—these and other stories exhibit the constantly changing variety of the ocean itself, the peaks and troughs of life. Lighthearted, glittering fables are met with starker tales that sound the depths of sacrifice and duty. The Pacific and Other Stories is a resplendent, powerful collection of lasting substance and emotional import.

House of Mourning and Other Stories

House of Mourning and Other Stories
Author: Desmond Hogan
Publisher: Deep Vellum Publishing
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2013-06-18
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1564789802

There is no doubt that Desmond Hogan is one of most remarkable literary talents to have come out of Ireland in the past half-century, and perhaps the best introduction to his work is through his magnificent short stories, widely anthologized and praised throughout the world. Focusing as always on the downtrodden and the eccentric, the misplaced and the dispossessed, Hogan's stories merge past with present, landscape with mindscape—distinctly Irish and burdened by history, while exhilaratingly and wholly universal and modern.

Yellow Wolf - His Own Story

Yellow Wolf - His Own Story
Author: Lucullus Virgil Mcwhorter
Publisher: Read Books Ltd
Total Pages: 349
Release: 2013-06-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 1473386713

Yellow Wolf - His Own Story. By Lucullus Virgil McWhorter, Illustrated with original photographs. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.